Cooking remains largely unchanged for great swaths of time. However, often tools are created to make cooking easier or less time consuming. Much of the modernization of cooking has come in the form of ingenious gadgetry and automating manual processes with a machine. However, while the technology is continually changing, not every kind of tool gets a modernized version.
Many of the laborious tasks such as grinding, kneading, and shredding have become mechanized because as people get older, these are often the first tasks that become hard to do. Unfortunately, many relatively simple handheld tools have remained unchanged for decades. While a knife's quality may have increased with modern manufacturing techniques, the same basic concept remains, a handle with a sharp blade. Similarly, stirring devices have remained substantially the same, some sort of handle and some sort of flat end to agitate the liquid or food.
Additionally, with all the advances made in handheld kitchen tools, certain things are still difficult to do, such as chopping something at the bottom of a pot. Most knives are incapable of this because the angles required to chop are impractical with a straight blade attached to a straight handle, and most spatulas are not designed to chop many things. Additionally, spatulas are relatively inefficient in agitating a liquid, and must be used at a specific angle relative to the direction of stirring. Each direction of stirring has its own most efficient angle.
Regarding stirring devices that might be used for cutting, U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,616, issued to Dick D. Bryan discloses a device for separating moist, fatty ground meat. The device disclosed has an elongated handle and separating blades. Importantly, while this invention may be used to cut items, this device is not suitable for stirring, nor is it intended to. The corners of the separating blades are right angles. This type of device would not be particularly useful when attempting to scrape the edges of a pot. Additionally, the device disclosed would not be particularly useful in stirring because of the low amount of volume which is agitated.
Additionally, The Pampered Chef®'s Mix 'N Chop allows a user to stir and chop by using an elongated handle with five beveled pinwheel blades at the distal end. Importantly, this product is also made of a hard plastic, and also has right angles at the edge of the beveled pinwheel blades. These two characteristics taken together create a product which does not efficiently allow a user to scrape the sides and bottom corners of a pot. These two characteristics also mean that the product is difficult to clean.
Furthermore, United States Patent Application Publication Number 2011/0174908, filed by Heather Curtin discloses a squeegee whisk which is capable of effectively scraping the sides of a pot. However, due to the open nature and its purpose of mashing, it is not useful as a stirring or chopping tool.
Thus, what is needed is a way for a user to stir efficiently and be able to also separate and/or cut items at the bottom of a pot.
Whisks have been used for stirring purposes for years. However it is well understood by those who frequently use whisks that such a utensil is prone to having food items lodged inside the metal wire basket of the whisk. This is an inherent flaw in the design of a whisk. Further when a user wishes to remove food items lodged inside the metal wire basket of the whisk, they must either manually spread the whisk's wires apart and allow the trapped food items to fall out of the wire basket or tap the whisk onto the edge of a bowl or similar hard edge of an object. Such an impact will often dislodge the food from inside the whisk. Unfortunately, such an impact will often cause the lodged food to be ejected at such a velocity that the food items will often end up in an undesired location such as on the user, on a countertop, or on the floor.